The present invention relates to computer-based music apparatus and systems for music composition, and in particular to rhythm composers for automatically composing musical rhythms.
A rhythm composer is known which uses control data to modify a given or source rhythm. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,926,737 of the present inventor and assigned to the present assignee, discloses a rhythm composer which uses a pulse scale as control data. The pulse scale is a pattern of weights of timings or pulse points on a music time axis. A weight of a particular timing or pulse point may be regarded as representative of the number of notes that can be generated at that pulse point, or representative of the chances of generation of a note at that point. Such a pulse scale is used to join notes or disjoin a note. In a particular mode of joining or disjoining notes, the rhythm composer finds a note that starts at a minimum weight pulse point and joins it to the preceding note, or finds a note that includes midway a pulse point of the maximum weight and disjoins it into two notes, using that pulse point as the disjoining point.
Whereas the prior art rhythm composers can automatically compose rhythms using control data, their process of rhythm modification is completely or essentially deterministic for a given rhythm and control data (pulse scale). Thus, the rhythm composing capability of the prior art rhythm composer is limited.